The New York Times put together a really nice interactive map for the election...but I thought it would be nice to have the three displays right next to each other instead of just toggling. So below the fold are the: 1) States as allocated to each candidate 2) Counties allocated to each candidate, shaded to illustrate the size of the percentage margin 3) Counties allocated to each candidate, with a bubble representation whose size is proportional to the absolute margin of the winning candidate in that county
To some extent, perhaps the Obama coalition could be characterized like so: the great metropolises + the Upper Midwest & New England + the Black Belt & the Hispanic interior. My impression is mostly solidified by the last map, which highlights the enormous vote booms of the major cities. The vast majority of the more sparsely populated regions of the nation are Republican, except for the areas mentioned above. Much of New England and portions of the Upper Midwest are interesting insofar as these are regions of Obama support which are both white and rural (or at least, not necessarily within the orbit of an urban conurbation).
